Kherrberr: The New Lebanese Media Monitor on Gender Discrimination

Kherrberr is a media monitor that specializes in overseeing the different types of gender discrimination, including biases based on color, race, religion, appearance, sexual orientation, and social class. 

In Lebanon, women do not have the most basic rights. There is a continued absence of laws that protect them from family violence and they are barred from passing on their Lebanese nationality to their spouses and children. They also remain imprisoned in a regime of physical and gendered stereotypes. The last thing women in Lebanon need is further discrimination. Thus, a group of independent activists, not affiliated with any organizations, associations, or private or governmental groups, launched the Kherrberr initiative in order to raise awareness about both the need to monitor and counter the sexist and gendered messages conveyed by the media and advertising industries in Lebanon.  Knowing what an important role media and advertising outlets play in socializing public and individual opinions, the Kherrberr Monitor highlights different types of media and advertising that demeans women. This media message of sexism saturates the Lebanese public sphere through songs, music videos, commercials, billboards, television programs, online social media, and print media.

The main goal of the Kherrberr monitor is to urge the Lebanese government to develop laws that push advertising agencies to adopt a more progressive gender discourse and to stop dispersing violent messages that demean, objectify and stereotype women and the roles they play in society. Kherrberr attempts to cover the entire Lebanese territory by way of a person to person monitoring network that spreads throughout the north, south, Mount Lebanon, the Bekaa, and the capital, Beirut. The Kherrberr bulletin is released biweekly on Tuesdays, and it contains both  commendable and deplorable examples of media in Lebanon logged throughout the preceding weeks.

Kherrberr has presented issues that tackle different aspects of discrimination, sexploitation and gender stereotyping; for example in issue 2 the Zaatar W Zeit Video  provoked a contentious debate about the portrayal of the female figure, and in the same issue, we busted a CMC Hospital ad that suggested that only women who have had plastic surgery truly exist After only three issues, the Busted Ones section is overflowing with examples of sexist media.

While the Kherrberr team will always keep an eye out for offensive content,  anyone can contribute transgressions (s)he comes across through the YOU BUST section. So, get out your cameras and phones, and help us find all the different offenses against women’s rights in the media!

Please contact us for more information or to join us on info@kherrberr.org